KIK toetab:

Birder's diary - 23.06

In the rainy weather I didn’t go for a longer trip, but in early morning I went to the Aardla polder all the same to look for the little crakes and even succeeded in ringing one more bird. The rainy Midsummer holiday I used instead to check the reports that had arrived to the Bird rarities committee . Decisions will take some more time, the other committee members must give their evaluation of the observations too.

Reading the arrived forms and looking for additional information in the e-Biodiversity database an interesting observation turned up. This year a record number of red kites have been seen in Estonia, it has been seen in at least five places by birders. I myself went twitching the creature in early June, at Sõrve säär in Saaremaa; the red kite had been stationary there for some time (June 4-6). Now it appeared that a few days earlier decent photos had been made of a red kite (June 1) in Hiiumaa at Jausa.

Red kite at Sõrve säär in Saaremaa 04.06.2012 (Uku Paal)

The holes and broken tips of the primaries were identical with those on the bird seen a few days earlier in Hiiumaa, thus it was the same individual.

When I compared the photos of the Jausa and the Sõrve sääre kites, it became clear that we had to do with the same individual. On the photos it can be seen that the holes and broken tips of the primaries of the left wing of both birds were identical, thus the same bird. In fact questions had already been raised as to why so many of this rarity might have strayed here this year. Now it is clear that at least on the islands only one bird seems to be moving about.